Old Joppa Road overpass damaged after truck crash

DAVID ANDERSON, daanderson@baltsun.com

The Old Joppa Road overpass over I-95 in southwestern Harford County suffered minor damage early Tuesday morning after a dump truck traveling north on I-95 crashed into it, forcing county officials to close the overpass for about 10 hours.

Sgt. Beads of the Maryland State Police JFK Memorial Highway Barrack, which is responsible for I-95 between the Baltimore City/County line and Maryland/Delaware state line, said no one was injured in the crash, which occurred around 2:30 a.m.

Beads said the raised bed of the dump truck hit the overpass and was knocked off.

Information on whether the driver was charged with a traffic offense was not immediately available.

The overpass was closed to traffic on Old Joppa, a county road, and bridge inspectors with the Maryland Transportation Authority surveyed the structure.

"They found some very minor scraping and no structural damage," MdTA spokesman John Sales said.

The MdTA owns and maintains toll facilities such as bridges, tunnels and the 50-mile stretch of I-95 known as the JFK Memorial Highway.

Sales said highway overpasses and ramps are included in the agency's jurisdiction for its toll facilities.

"We just want to make sure that the overpass is safe for the traffic that's passing underneath," he explained.

Sales said the truck was being used as part of a "system preservation project," the repaving of the north and southbound lanes of I-95 between Joppa Road in White Marsha and the bridge over Winters Run.

Sherrie Johnson, public information officer for the Harford County government, said the county reopened Old Joppa between 12:30 and 1 p.m. Tuesday.

The MdTA is also overseeing an extensive revamping of a section of I-95 between the 1-95/895 split north of the Fort McHenry Tunnel in Baltimore and the Route 43 interchange near White Marsh, to build express toll lanes. That part of the highway is known as Section 100, and the project is expected to be completed next year.

The dump truck involved in Tuesday morning's crash was not part of the Section 100 project, Sales said.